New York City to ban trans fat?

The Big Apple is waging a war against all things artificially trans fatty with a new proposal which calls for the complete elimination of the unsaturated fatty acid. There is no question about it: partially hydrogenated oils are very bad for you. Because of this, doctors recommend keeping consumption to very trace amounts, due to the substance having absolutely no benefits for your health.

In fact, trans fats are directly linked to increasing your risk of coronary heart disease (not to mention diabetes and cancer). So as you can see, it appears as though we’d all be better off without it, right? Well NYC thinks so, and the proposal would affect 24,600 food eateries around the city. The idea here is to ban all ingredients that use artificial trans fats.

This has some people in the food biz up in arms. Chuck Hunt of the city’s Restaurant Association says that “it goes well beyond what we think is prudent and acceptable.” He believes it will create “havoc” in the kitchen with cooks having to discard old recipes. Apparently he believes that coming up with a healthier alternative to just a few ingredients is too much of a hassle to save people’s lives and health.

Under the proposal, all establishments would need to make the change by July of 2008.

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